Enchanted
by Myrielle
Summary: One chance, one lifetime. Years later, So Yi Jeong meets Chu Ga Eul and realises that he is still enchanted.


Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: One chance, one lifetime. Years later, So Yi Jeong meets Chu Ga Eul and realises that he is still enchanted.

**ENCHANTED **

His birthday had happened three days ago and already he had forgotten most of it. The celebrations, if one could call a social obligation that, were always the same. Everyone who was anyone was there, and this year was no exception, in spite of the swirl of gossip he had ensnared his family in. A bitter smile lifted the corner of his mouth as Yi Jeong raised a glass to the major fuck up he had made of his life. _Game over, you have no more lives left. Please try again._ Except that this was not a game and there was no second chance, no way to go back. He was barely into his thirties and it was all over.

A waiter glided silently to his side and refilled his glass once again. He had started patronising this joint a year ago, when his divorce was finalised. It was a very small bar, served excellent drinks and was tucked away in a small remote part of the city. Best of all, it was a well-kept secret and so none of the usual crowd he ran into at high society events would be there to look down their noses at him and gossip about his ex-wife who had left him for his best friend.

The funniest thing was that he was actually happy for them. His tall graceful swan-like wife whom he had married because he hadn't the spine to stand up to his father, she had more guts than he would ever have. Su-Bin had tried her damndest to win him over and when that didn't happen, she had tried to move on. What he hadn't expected was that it was Ji Hoo who would once again play the knight in shining armour and this time, he could not pass up the lady. Not again. Yi Jeong had quietly given his friend his blessing, knowing that he was in no place to cast stones and that he was too tired to care. Controversy would die down, disgrace could be borne. He was just glad that it was over, that something good had come out of this after all.

Sipping at his drink while barely tasting it, he tried to recall what had happened that night. Faking smiles was something he was practiced in but that day, it had seemed especially painful. The laughter and congratulations around him seemed forced, they probably were, and beneath their glasses everyone was probably smirking. He had not even wanted to attend but his grandfather and father had insisted and like a good boy, he had acquiesced. "When will you ever learn?" Yi Jeong mocked himself softly. That night Jun Pyo and Woo Bin had stood by him like bodyguards and even Geum Jan Di had played her part in keeping the conversation light and deflecting any barbs aimed at him. No one wanted to cross Mrs Gu Jun Pyo, especially with her powerful husband and sister-in-law by her side.

And even when it was all over, he was still there. Tired, lonely. He was so sick of being intimately acquainted with those feelings. They had been there all his life, except when she had been around. And he had driven her away. Life was vacant because he had made it so. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty and the sages who coined that little saying could have included how excruciating it could be.

A glance at his watch showed he still had an hour more to go. It was a routine he had fallen into. By eleven he would pay his bill, by midnight he would be alone and retired for the night. Nowadays, he was never drunk anymore because it made no difference.

When she stepped into the bar though, Yi Jeong wasn't so sure. His eyes widened and for the first time in more than a year, he felt something. 'It can't be,' he thought, almost dazed. Out of the soft darkness, in the barely there glow of dim lights, Chu Ga Eul looked around, wearing a familiar expression of anxiety and uncertainty. She had always been uncomfortable in such places; she had always mentioned that she didn't fit in. It was impossible to tell though. A pale gold dress clung elegantly to her slim figure and her long flowing hair ended down her back in gentle curls. Within seconds a waiter who looked much too eager for Yi Jeong's liking had materialised at her side and escorted her to a table. So she was waiting for someone, probably a date.

Looking down, Yi Jeong wondered who it was, why she was even back in Korea and how he could be jealous at a time like this. Eight years ago she had left and he had done nothing to get her back. Apparently, Su-Bin was right; there was no end to his shamelessness. He wanted to get up and leave but he couldn't because her table was positioned between him and the exit. Yi Jeong was contemplating how to run the gauntlet and get away with it when he looked up into a pair of eyes that perfectly mirrored all he was feeling at that moment. In those seconds, both of them were plunged back into the past and it was as though the gap of eight years had closed and all their wounds had reopened.

"Ga Eul-yang," he whispered and he could see her mouth that familiar endearment she reserved only for him. He felt more than heard it, an invisible caress that clutched at his heart and made him shudder.

And then a chair scraped softly against the floor and he saw her beginning to rise. She was leaving, her eyes shining so brightly in the dark that he knew those were tears. For a moment he sat there, paralysed by a familiar inertia. It had happened before, nothing had changed. And ten, twenty, thirty years from now he would still be here and hindsight would remind him with agonising clarity that he had been given a second chance and had thrown it away.

"Don't go." The words escaped him before he knew it and then he was rising too, propelled by an urgency that defied logic and old fears. Heads turned as people stared but Yi Jeong was beyond caring. All that mattered was that she was here and so was he and his foolish, foolish heart was suddenly alive. Maybe it was already too late but he would take what he could get if only because he already didn't deserve this.

"Ga Eul-yang, wait!"

But she was already gone.

/

As she bursts out into the bright street lights and the cold night air, Ga Eul realises she has forgotten her coat but she does not care. She would give anything to leave that ghost of the past at rest. For a moment she wonders if she's regressed, if she's gone back to seeing So Yi Jeong in every man that bears a passing resemblance to him, times when her heart soared so high and hard it felt like her chest was coming apart only for it to plummet into the darkest depths when she realises it's not him. Even in New York, with chirpy Jae Kyung by her side, she had had to keep burying the memory of him, and along with that, a part of herself as well.

Maybe it's Korea, perhaps she shouldn't have come back. Behind her, she hears footsteps on the pavement and quickens her own pace. But mastering the art of walking quickly in four inch heels is not quite enough to allow one to sprint down the street in them. Ga Eul ducks her head and hopes desperately, foolishly that he won't see her even though there is hardly anyone walking about in this part of the neighbourhood. "Just let me leave," she mutters between gritted teeth, her fingers digging into her arms which she has wrapped around herself, a refuge against the cold.

"Ga Eul-yang!"

She reminds herself that this is So Yi Jeong. All she has to do is keep her head down and keep walking. He'll let her go. He always has and she has had enough of this, of him. First thing tomorrow, she's on a flight out of Seoul, even if she has to call Jae Kyung and beg for the use of one of JK Holdings' private airplanes.

To her utter disbelief, she hears the footsteps again, only faster and harder. He's coming after her! And the world spins as he turns her around almost roughly, his hands on her shoulders. To her utter horror, Ga Eul realises her heart is beating faster, that he hasn't changed. In spite of the shadows beneath his eyes, the leaner angles of his face, he is still the same for her. He touches her and she comes alive in a way for him that she has never for any man, for anyone. So she hadn't changed after all. 'Chu Ga Eul, you failure. What woman pines eight years for a man who kept her waiting for four years before that?' she curses herself. A sob escapes and even as she bites it back, she knows the answer she has shoved to the back of her mind. A woman mourning the loss of a soulmate.

"So it is you."

His voice is ragged and she can smell the faint scent of brandy on him. It reminds her of another night, once upon a time when she had waited silently in the night, knowing that he would come home stone drunk, needing her help and probably not know that she had helped him. That girl had stars in her eyes and Ga Eul knows she isn't that person anymore. Wrenching free, she pushes his hands away, drawing herself straight, up and away from him. "Can I go now?"

It's the best she can do. She used to envision, sometimes, what she would ever say to Yi Jeong if she saw him again. Over the years, she has graduated from hysterical rage and scathing sarcasm to quiet resignation and release. All she wants is to get away.

"What about your date?"

"Date?" Ga Eul repeats, looking up at him in spite of herself. "I was supposed to meet Jan Di here for a drink…"

For a moment Ga Eul looks so hurt that Yi Jeong almost wishes her best friend hadn't set her up to meet him. "It might have been Jun Pyo and Woo Bin," he offers quietly. "They probably interfered and caused this." She nods, sighs audibly and that simple action drives home his earlier impression of her. She had always been delicate and fragile to him, but she had had an inner strength that he admired. It seems missing now, that larger than life optimism is gone and he wonders if he really is the cause of this. Guilt bites deeply, painfully and Yi Jeong wonders, not for the first time, how he can make it up to her and if she would even consider all he wants to do. "Wait here."

Before Ga Eul can protest, Yi Jeong has slid his jacket off and wrapped it around her. "I don't need—" Again, his jaw tightens just that little bit, the corners of his eyes narrow slightly and she tells herself that it doesn't matter if she's hurt him. He should know better than to do this; it stirs memories of a night filled with sparkling lights and an afternoon of quiet flames.

"Just hold it for a minute. I'll get your coat."

And just like that he has reduced her righteous indignation to shame at her churlishness. Cut, pressed, moulded, put in a fire of more than a thousand degrees. If she can withstand being in the heart of this kiln… Ga Eul smiles sadly. Even now it is his advice that she remembers.

He returns and doesn't look when she hurriedly shrugs off his jacket and wraps her pale grey coat around her. "Thank you Yi Jeong." The polite control in her voice grates on his nerves, which are already tensed, stretched. "I'll be on my way then."

"How are you getting back?" he asks, ignoring the frown that mars her smooth brow.

"I'll call for a taxi." She already has her phone out. Yi Jeong wonders what the number is. Once, on a night when he was too thoroughly intoxicated to care about the consequences of his actions on either of them, he called her. That night he realised she had changed her number and no one had told him what the new one was.

"That might take some time," he comments as he watches the frown deepen.

"So I'll wait." Ga Eul wishes that she didn't sound so curt. It tells both of them he still affects her.

"Alright, so will I." His reply is maddeningly casual, as though he isn't aware of her subtle cues for him to get lost.

Yi Jeong almost smiles when she looks up, those large eyes narrowed with irritation and suspicion. He never enjoyed it when he taunted Su-Bin; it was always more to vent his frustration at being trapped with her and his anger with himself. It was wrong but for years that anger had tainted anyone that attempted to reach out to him. Only his friends had been safe from that. Relatively safe at any rate. But this he misses, this he has always enjoyed although he knows at the moment she would like him to crawl back under the rock he came out from.

"What do you want?"

He'd like to hold her and go back to the past, now that he knows what a horrendous mess he has made of the present. "Just to talk." A simply worded invitation to navigate the emotional minefield between them. "It won't take long, only some of your time."

Ga Eul is mulling over the wisdom of saying no when Yi Jeong smiles. It's a strange half smile, one that she has never seen on him before. It's the smile of a man who knows what it is like to be broken, to have made it through sadness by the skin of his teeth. She knows that smile well, has seen it on herself often enough. "Ga Eul-yang, don't you think it's time we talked about us?"

Something inside her twists fiercely at the sound of those words. They belong to the past, to different people. He knows this. Maybe like her, he needs to put the years to rest. Perhaps it will be this night. "Alright," she whispers. "Where do you want to go?"

And like he did years before, he takes her by the hand and leads her to his car. He opens the door for her and she gets in, settles herself stiffly in the seat, wondering how much can go wrong this time and if anything good will emerge from this. Yi Jeong gets in as well and for a few seconds, they soak in the silence, déjà vu sweeping through them, threatening to carry them away. And suddenly she knows, just knows what destination he has in mind.

/

Ga Eul looks up the flight of steps. Interminably long is the phrase that comes to mind. "Twelve years," she mutters as they stand at the bottom, their eyes fixed on the way up ahead. They neither touch nor look at each other, the small distance between them which she has been mindful to preserve might as well be the Grand Canyon.

"Twelve and a half," Yi Jeong corrects. The first time, he had held his heart in his hands but before he could give it away, she stopped and left him there standing alone. The second time had been during their season, fleeting but indelible, fiercely sweet in spite of the flood of bitterness in its wake.

"You want to end it all where it first began?" Ga Eul doesn't mean for it to sound like an accusation but it comes out like that anyway. To conceal her embarrassment, she begins the first step. Her heels sound loud against the concrete. The banister feels cold against her hand. Behind her, she hears him begin his ascent up. Appropriately he has taken the other side.

"If that was the case then we would have gone to New Caledonia."

That comment is enough to give her pause, allowing him to overtake her. She used to ask him when he had started liking her and he had always given her a teasing smile or a cheeky wink, never a reply. So somehow, between dragging him up the hill to the park and Gu Jun Pyo's abrupt departure, it had started. "No thanks. Been there, done that," she replies archly, catching up with him. To his credit, Yi Jeong simply shrugs and keeps moving.

Their footsteps resonate in the night, melding into the gentle backdrop of silence mixed with the occasional soft humming of insects. Together yet apart, traversing a stream of memories. He turns to glance at Ga Eul and notes the wistful smile on her face. "Bunny ears for your thoughts?"

As he hoped, it draws a slight laugh from her. "I must have looked ridiculous. I don't know what I was thinking." There had been no consideration beyond the desire to cheer him up.

"I always wondered if you still have those photos." Because he certainly does, stashed away at the bottom of a drawer full of personal items. Not that he has any intention of telling her or waiting for her to reply to his question. Some things are better left unsaid. "Whatever you had in mind, it worked. You know I had a great day. I'm sorry I ruined yours."

Four years later, he had shown up at the kindergarten where she taught, and just as he had promised, she was the first person he had sought on upon returning. They had become closer, but Yi Jeong still kept her at a distance, making no promises even while he went right back to being wildly popular with the opposite sex. Woo Bin had remarked that the entire female population of Seoul would be throwing welcome back celebrations for Yi Jeong. It was a comment that kept her up frequently at night. "Don't apologise. You saved me, remember? So we're even now." She doesn't want apologies. Apologies accepted would heal some of her wounds and right now she needs their stings to help her remain objective.

She is determined to keep a wall between them. It is a situation that he finds more unsettling with every minute. Logically he understands why she is doing this but it unnerves him, nonetheless. He's used to putting walls up, not taking them down. "So what have you been doing all this time?"

She really doesn't have to tell him anything. But Ga Eul finds that she wants to anyway. What was the harm in letting him know? In the end she and So Yi Jeong had more in common than she had dreamed or wanted. "I found a job there, teaching art to kids at an international school. I'm still teaching there and they made me assistant head of the Arts Department two years ago."

"Congratulations, even if I'm a little bit late."

She gives him a half smile that makes his heart beat a little bit faster. "You're part of the curriculum you know, under the ceramics module."

They are halfway there and it's still quiet. Yi Jeong is thankful that his prayers have been answered. "I never thought people would actually study what I've made… Come to think of it, there was a student tour group from New York that visited the museum three years ago… Did you…?" He looks at her questioningly and she nods. So she had been here, in the museum his family owned. For a few days they had been in the same city, probably used the same roads and they had passed each other by without him knowing. "I hope the kids enjoyed themselves. I recall the curator saying that they were very well-behaved."

She's relieved he isn't going to make an issue of it. She does not tell him that as the bus had pulled out of the car park, he had driven past in that bright orange Lotus Elise which was unmistakably his. She had ducked her head, disobeying her first instinct to catch a glimpse of him, hating herself for still being affected. She had squeezed her hand so tightly that the band around her finger had pressed painfully into her flesh.

"I got married," she says abruptly.

His hand happens to be resting on the railing at the moment but it doesn't quite stop the sensation of having the ground beneath his feet vanish. For the second time that night his heart feels like it has literally dropped into the pit of his stomach. After she disappeared, his friends had asked he had checked up on her, if he wanted to meet her. They didn't push it but he had eventually banned the mention of Chu Ga Eul in his presence. Woo Bin and Jun Pyo had accepted that in resigned frustration; only Ji Hoo had pinned him with that intense, inscrutable gaze and pronounced his decision a mistake. This is what happened when he buried his head in the sand like an ostrich. It was a wonder that stupid bird had not gone extinct. It took an even stupider man to follow such a dumb example and this was payback. "When?"

By now they've stopped and are facing each other. "About three years after I started working in New York." Then she lifts up her left hand and he realises that there is no ring; her finger is bare. Reflexively, his thumb brushes against his ring finger as well. "It didn't last." Ga Eul wants to sound cavalier, means to sound casual but after more than a year of trying, she just can't.

"I'm sorry." His voice is so soft, tender almost and she knows, just knows he isn't just expressing sympathy. She wants to turn to him, to tell him it should have been him, it ought to have been him and then they wouldn't be here at Namsan, and she wouldn't feel so unravelled. Jan Di knows, Jae Kyung knows what happened and until tonight she has never really wanted to tell another soul.

Yi Jeong waits for her to speak, hopes that she will let him know what happened and maybe in some small way he can help ease the load she obviously carries. To his disappointment, she merely grips the banister and continues up the stairs. "Ga Eul, what happened?"

She turns back and gives him a slight smile. "I made a mistake." Because she turns away immediately after, she does not see the pain that flashes across Yi Jeong's face, the guilt that sinks its teeth in deep without letting go and he thinks to himself that this is his fault. She was always the dreamer, the idealist, the one who kept him strong. He ought to have protected her, taken better care of her.

By the time he gathers himself, she has almost reached the top and he hurries after her. They take the rest of the stairs in silence and for the first time, they see the fountain by night. It is liquid gold against ebony night, crystal streams that arch and dance with seeming life. There are benches nearby and they settle down at one.

"How are you?" The words are heavy on her tongue and she wonders if he will resent her for that question. Still, politeness demands that she ask and to be honest, she does want to know, does hope that for all she has heard, that he is alright although she thinks otherwise.

"Surviving. Barely." It's a playful quip but the bitterness in his eyes taints his smile. "You must have heard about my divorce."

She had actually met Ji Hoo and Su-Bin when they had retreated to New York in a bid to escape the scandal. "Jae Kyung told me a little."

"I bet she left out all the good stuff." He sighs, gazes straight ahead at the fountain and Ga Eul thinks that she has never seen Yi Jeong so defeated. Except maybe when he had thought his hand damaged beyond repair. But then she had been there to help him. Try as she may, Ga Eul cannot help but think again that So Yi Jeong, playboy extraordinaire, needs looking after, needs protecting. "But this time, I really only have myself to blame. I might as well have tossed that marriage into the furnace and watched it burn."

"Why—"

"I couldn't love her. I never did and I didn't want to try."

In the moments that follow, Ga Eul can hear the soft thundering of her heart.

She does not press for more but Yi Jeong is determined to get the words out, even if it kills him. He has had eight long years and a bitter marriage to mull over their past and his mistakes. "Ga Eul yang, I know this might be too late for us but still..." As he says this he struggles to keep his voice even. "I was wrong. I shouldn't have blamed you."

The last time they had been together, he had raged, had thrown his priceless art pieces while she watched helplessly. Both of them had been so angry, so hurt, so guilty. "Yi Jeong ah…"

"You were not responsible in any way, and neither was I. My moth…her decisions were hers to make." He wonders even now, as he always has, whether she had even considered the effect it would have on the lives of her children as she had swallowed pill after pill. Or had she been so caught up with leaving a permanent imprint of guilt on all of them that she had failed to realise it would shatter their lives. Maybe that was what she wanted, in order to be remembered and no longer neglected by her husband. In her own way, she had been as tremendously selfish as his father.

She had urged him to stop listening to his mother, to stop spying on his father and interrupting his liaisons. It hurt her to see him so bitter and cynical, and to be honest she feared its effect on their relationship. So when he had accused her of causing his mother's death, Ga Eul had defended herself while secretly believing that he was right, to some extent. "I overstepped my boundaries. It ought to have been a choice you alone made." She knew now that much was true.

If only they had been this wise then… Yi Jeong smiles wistfully. Still, it feels as though a weight has been lifted off.

"Are they ever going to shut off the fountain for the night?" Ga Eul muses out loud after long moments of silence.

"Perhaps we should sit here and find out." She has never been good at hiding her emotions and in the open book of her face he sees willingness and then fear that makes her withdraw.

"It's already very late. Perhaps next time." They both know she doesn't intend for a next time to happen.

"Just for this one night, Ga Eul yang. Please?"

This is territory she does not want to step in. As she told him, she has already made one bad mistake and Ga Eul does not intend to be a fool twice over. She is scared and will admit it readily to herself. But when he looks at her like that, it is so very hard to say no. "Only for tonight," she acquiesces.

"Thank you." It is a miniscule, but progress nonetheless. Yi Jeong knows he has already made enough mistakes and he is determined not to be a fool any longer. They have found each other again, and this time, he will keep her by his side.


End file.
